‘Sarasota Film Festival 2003’

“Blackfish,” a moving and alarming documentary about orcas or “killer whales” in captivity, made a forceful and memorable opening night film for the 15th Annual Sarasota Film Festival.

Directed and painstakingly researched by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, “Blackfish” explores the hidden realities of capturing, keeping and training these 12,000 pound, highly evolved, oceanic dolphins in for-profit amusement parks such as Sea World in Orlando. Weaving together interviews with former park employees and marine experts as well as revealing, even horrifying, film clips, Cowperthwaite has assembled a powerful protest against the exploitation of these intelligent animals who, in the wild, live in well-defined matriarchal groups, each with their own “languages” of calls and signals.

One incentive for the making of “Blackfish,” surely, was the death of experienced trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, at Sea World in February 2010. Although the park first claimed that Brancheau had slipped and fallen into the 30-foot-deep pool, witnesses believe and film clips suggest she was deliberately mauled and dragged under by Tilikum, a bull orca previously responsible for the deaths of two people.

The incentive for this and other attacks elsewhere, the film suggests, is the unnatural confinement of huge animals in relatively small commercial pools, plus the fact that their normal, matriarchal group life style has been interrupted. One interesting question that the film does not cover is the matter of how the orcas are trained. Food, obviously, is the motivation, but one wonders exactly how the animals have been led to allow employees to ride on their backs, or to act in timed unison with other orcas.

The April 5th, opening night showing of “Blackfish” was followed by an illuminating question period in which a number of those interviewed in the film were participants. It was particularly interesting to hear one former park trainer explain how hard it was for him to finally give up his job because of his affection for the animals, Tilikum in particular.

All in all, “Blackfish” is a forceful and worthwhile film that leaves larger questions unanswered. First and foremost: Is it possible that profitable sea parks in Florida and elsewhere can or will be closed in order to protect the declining population of orcas? Second: How far can this argument be taken? Doesn’t it also apply to animals in zoos and circuses who are similarly removed from their natural habitats? Finally: What about farm work animals and animals raised for people to eat?

Answers aren’t easy, but Gabriela Cowperthwaite has certainly sparked discussion, and perhaps action, in her well-made and challenging film “Blackfish.”